Suzy says: ‘Can I post one of these? Please? They are so raw and perfect. So immediate.’

Art says: ‘Sure, but credit me.’

My mother says: ‘Credit me.’

Suzy raises her phone and lines up the shot of the scene.

I’ve got to either puke or move. Puke or move, Jenny, puke or move. I move. I might also puke, but I am moving. I stride right in and I say: ‘WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?’

I want to say YOUNG LADY.

Or OLD LADY.

But mostly ARRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH.

Everyone and everything stops. The people who don’t know me clearly think I am some prudish theatre worker or zany wandering type. The people who do know me know that I am all of those things, and also – righteously angry. I stand looking at them, one by one – my mother, Art, Suzy. All of their mouths are open.

I say: ‘WHAT KIND OF DEPRAVED ARRANGEMENT IS THIS?’

My mother reaches for her clothes to cover herself up. I am aware on some level of the innate ridiculousness of myself. This is me: I am half panic, half pantomime. And this is about me, all of this, is it not? Has to be.

Art says: ‘Carmen, I thought you said you cleared this?’

My mother bats her hand and mutters, ‘My daughter’s not my keeper.’

This prompts a kerfuffle of sudden understanding amongst the attendees who don’t know me. Oh, it’s her daughter …

Suzy says: ‘She is free to be the woman she wants to be.’ She says it with the barest edge of civility.

I point at her. ‘Don’t you even THINK about making this a feminist thing, Brambles.’

My mother says: ‘How did you find me here?’

Art says: ‘I can explain. This is a full story. Your mother is part of my next exhibition: Scars and Girls. It’s about motherhood.’

My mother says: ‘It’s going to be a beautiful and important exhibition.’

I look at the three of them, from face to face to face. Suzy looks irritated, as though me turning up here is ruining her day. My mother is looking at me in a panicked sort of way, like she’s only just realised what a monumental fuck-up this might be. Art is watching me with a look in his eye that is deliciously fearful.

I am Ripley with the flame-thrower. The elevator reaches the bottom floor. Ding.

I take a deep breath. ‘You win, Art. You win.’

He coughs and looks unsure, shuffles from foot to foot, looks at the buttons on his camera. ‘I don’t want to win.’

‘Doesn’t matter. It’s not your fault but it’s what you were primed for. You bided your time because on some unconscious level you were playing a long game. A long game I could never play.’

‘I’m not playing any games.’